I've never taken any of the TES games to represent a remotely accurate scale of the "real" Tamriel. It's never struck me as important - or even desirable, let alone possible - to make a "true 1:1 scale" (whatever that'd be) of Tamriel. Quite happy with the "HUGE miniature scale model" world.

Well, I'm happy with that too, otherwise I wouldn't even be here. And I'm not really into having a 1:1 scale either. I'm just saying that the terrain of Vvardenfell could be done better if it were a little bit bigger.

There aren't any spoilers in this in case you are playing this game. As for the discussion of more space, the idea is that you don't have to cram stuff into every single square inch - in fact, you should not want to.

ST
PS, that may sound obvious, but it also discusses open world design.

"Hurry, hurry! Last boat to Solstheim! Until the next one. Hah-ha-hah."

Seeing Vivec from Seyda Neen is a big reason, or rather, seeing how small everything is, is a big reason. My original post, in all its madness, mentioned that it would help make viewing distant land and statics become smoother... or... what's the word... not as jarring. Seeing each city easily from another, and the towns and cities being so small, at least in my opinion, gives good reason to upscale the land in some fashion.

The Project Tamriel team is making a great mod, true, and things like TR could be adapted when they are done by a team of modders crazy enough, but for now I'm concerned with Morrowind with Solstheim.

For me, Morrowind is Home. The mods that add other landmasses are cool, and I do enjoy them from time to time. However, one of my dreams is to see Morrowind in a whole new light. A new world with more of Vvardenfell to explore, more places to live, more people to talk to. Expanding the land is a way to start that. OpenMW just might make that possible. It's made all my other dreams for Morrowind come true thus far.

To each his own. If someone doesn't like the idea and doesn't want it, that's fine, and those who do can help make it a reality. This is something I would like to try to make a reality, when it's possible.

What's needed is a way to divide the land and move it while keeping all npc and statics and cell names attached to them, then generate blank land inbetween and begin modding. My intentions this weekend are to test the height map and see what OpenMW's upward limits are (pun intended). With that figured out, we can go from there to see what needs to be done to make Red Mountain more of a mountain, valleys deeper and cliffs higher. Once blank land is "injected" we can then work on landscaping one section at a time. Adding textures, rocks, trees, a corpse or two. After there is just open land, people can work on adding in dungeons, caves, mines, inns, and expanding cities to their own liking. I was thinking that end bit could be the theme of one of Morrowind Modding Showcases mod-a-thons, if he's up to hosting it. I still need to ask him, but before that, this needs to take off. Either way, it's possible and people in the Morrowind community are clearly crazy enough to do it. They said we'd never have multiplayer, and here it is, so this is doable by mad men like myself.

BTW, is there a way to keep mods that add things like city expansions and lighthouses from needing updated? Like, is there certain cell data they rely on to know where they are in the game that can be moved with the current cells? Or is that not possible? Not sure if that was worded in a way that can be easily understood, but I try my best.

Wisdom ,without love, is foolishness. Knowledge, without heart, is ignorance.

BTW, is there a way to keep mods that add things like city expansions and lighthouses from needing updated? Like, is there certain cell data they rely on to know where they are in the game that can be moved with the current cells? Or is that not possible? Not sure if that was worded in a way that can be easily understood, but I try my best.

There will be no readily easy way to do this. if you expand/move the landmass out from where it is in default then any mods that place objects/land based upon the original default values will have errors (land overwritten/objects above/below the land)

Sadly, anything that would change the land out like this is going to require hand editing to work correctly with those mods

ST
PS - not saying that you should not still try this, just giving a heads up on potential issues

"Hurry, hurry! Last boat to Solstheim! Until the next one. Hah-ha-hah."

BTW, is there a way to keep mods that add things like city expansions and lighthouses from needing updated? Like, is there certain cell data they rely on to know where they are in the game that can be moved with the current cells? Or is that not possible? Not sure if that was worded in a way that can be easily understood, but I try my best.

There will be no readily easy way to do this. if you expand/move the landmass out from where it is in default then any mods that place objects/land based upon the original default values will have errors (land overwritten/objects above/below the land)

Sadly, anything that would change the land out like this is going to require hand editing to work correctly with those mods

ST
PS - not saying that you should not still try this, just giving a heads up on potential issues

Well I suppose mod authors or fans of said mods will need to make patches then. It was worth pondering if such a thing was possible, but I'm sure making a patch wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

Wisdom ,without love, is foolishness. Knowledge, without heart, is ignorance.

BTW, is there a way to keep mods that add things like city expansions and lighthouses from needing updated? Like, is there certain cell data they rely on to know where they are in the game that can be moved with the current cells? Or is that not possible? Not sure if that was worded in a way that can be easily understood, but I try my best.

I'd say there is. If the upscaling is done in the way you suggest, i.e. keeping whole regions completely intact, then you could record how exactly each region and its cells are moved within the game world. That way, a patcher could be written which does two things:
1. check, whether a modded cell is inside one such intact region (a) or in the transition region (b)
2. if (a), add the cell displacement for the correct region to the cell position of a modded cell, or post an error message if (b).

Of course, if the regions do not stay fully intact, for example because the land elevation changes, then it would be more complicated. If all the landscape changes are parameterised rather than done by hand, it could still be done, however.

Wonder if there's anything that can be done to fix that. However a direct upscale isn't the way I was thinking of doing things, if it can be helped.

How to upscale it aside, I tried editing the landscape in the original editor to test against the height map limits of OpenMW's engine, but met an issue. The original CS can't go beyond a certain point in terms of terrain height. It just flattens out. This means it will be up to OpenCS to be able to adjust land height beyond the limit that Morrowind originally had, if we want to actually have high peaks and a Red Mountain that looks like an actual mountain.

Thoughts?

Wisdom ,without love, is foolishness. Knowledge, without heart, is ignorance.